Recollections
by DarkMidnightStars
Summary: Goob's past, Wilbur's past. Sometimes looking back doesn't hurt.
1. New Ideas and Beginnings

He remembered the night Goob came to the orphanage.

The young boy had stayed up late yet again to work on his invention. Pulling a pencil out of his spiky blond hair, he scribbled out an equation. He adjusted his desk lamp, which was the only light on in the entire orphanage. It was stormy and dark outside and there wasn't a car to been seen or heard on the wet black road. Lewis stood up in his desk chair, leaning over to tighten a screw. Suddenly a loud pounding on the door interrupted the bespectacled boy. He jumped, spinning off of the chair. Picking up and reasserting himself, he quietly opened his bedroom door to peer out. No one else had seemed to notice the noise. He crept down the hall and stole down the stairs, wanting to discover who was at the door of the orphanage at such a time. He realized hastily that it might not be safe for an eight year old boy to open the door to a complete stranger at 2 in the morning, so he turned towards Mildred's room. She had already heard the knocking and came rushing down the corridor in her robe, nearly tripping over the small child.

"Lewis!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing up?" she didn't wait for an answer. "Never mind, you were probably working on an invention." She strode over to the door, making sure the latch was affixed for precaution. Peering around his caregiver, Lewis saw three figures standing on the steps. The first was carrying the second, and holding the tiny hand of the third. Mildred gasped at the sight of the trio of children, and ushered them inside. Lewis stepped back as to get a better look. The older one was around fourteen, supporting an infant, and neither of them looked to be in very good health. The four year old was clinging to the eldest, holding tightly to a grubby object in his other hand.

"Are you children alright?" cried Mildred. The older girl held out the baby to Mildred, and as soon as the child was free from her grasp, promptly collapsed on the floor. The boy began to cry, and Mildred ran around frantically trying to contact an ambulance. Lewis approached the dark haired youngster.

"Hello. I'm Lewis. What's your name?" he asked the sniffling child.

"My name's Mike Yagoobian." he replied.

"Mike Yagooplian?" Lewis repeated.

"No!" Mike pouted. "Ya-GOOB-ian."

"How 'bout just Goob?" Lewis suggested.

The other child looked too exhausted to argue. "'Kay, you can call me Goob."

"What's that you're holding?" Lewis pointed to the object which Goob was holding tightly.

"My baseball. I love baseball." Goob showed Lewis the dingy white sphere.

"Lewis!" Mildred shouted. "Go to bed!" She hefted the baby, which was crying profusely onto her shoulder and pressed the phone between her ear and the other shoulder. "Yes, I'm at the Sixth street orphanage…" She walked into the next room.

"What's wrong with my sister?" Goob asked fearfully, tugging on Lewis's sleeve.

"I don't know Goob." Lewis felt a surge of compassion for the pitiful four-year old.

Sirens screamed down the road, stopping at the front.

"LEWIS!" warned Mildred.

"Ok, I'll see ya later Goob." Lewis started to climb the stairs.

"Bye." Goob clutched his baseball tighter, and followed the stretcher out the door.

THREE DAYS LATER

"So, he can stay in my room?" Lewis poked Mildred, who was washing some grapes.

"Yes, Lewis, that's the only prepared room we have at the moment. But be gentle, he just lost both his sisters." Mildred waved him away.

Lewis heard a knock at the door. He dashed out to open it, but Mildred scolded him and shooed him back.

Goob stood outside, still carrying his precious ball. He shuffled inside, but upon catching sight of Lewis, lifted his head.

"Hey, Goob. You're going to be my roommate, ok?" Lewis said softly.

Goob nodded, then followed Lewis up to the cramped bedroom. Placing the ball carefully on his pillow, he flopped over backwards on the lower bunk.

Lewis wanted to rush over to him, to comfort the little boy with the dark eyes, but he was afraid of scaring him. He slowly crossed the room and sat down beside him. Staring at the floor, he was startled when a small voice cut through the silence.

"Lewis?"

"Yeah, Goob?" Lewis turned to see that Goob had sat up.

"Will you be my friend?" Goob stared solemnly at the blue-eyed inventor beside him.

Lewis was overwhelmed with sympathy. Here was a boy who had lost his parents, then his sisters in less than a week, left with nothing in the world but a baseball, asking him to be his friend. Lewis felt like his problems were insignificant compared to the small being. After all, Lewis didn't know who his parents were. His whole life he had been without parents, and only filled with burning questions to his past. Goob, however, had been emptied of everything but memories, probably which were painful now. And he was only four.

"Okay, I'll be your friend." Lewis smiled at the child.

Goob's face brightened. "Yay."

Leis got up from the bed and carefully covered his invention with an old sheet.

"Lewis?"

"Mmm-hmm?"

"What's that?"

"It's my invention."

"What's it do?"

"It's a flying skateboard." Lewis was momentarily expecting Goob to snicker, or something.

"Cool. Does it work?"

Lewis sighed. "Not yet."

"Oh. Can I have a juice box?"

Lewis chuckled. "Sure."

FlashFORTH!

Six year old Wilbur toddled into his dad's lab, his curious eyes drawn towards the desk his dad was currently working at.

"What's that, Dad?" he asked, poking his dad's shoulder. The sleeping Cornelius started a bit before opening his bleary eyes.

"What?" Cornelius glanced at the wall clock that proclaimed 4:56am. Sighing, he led Wilbur downstairs to the kitchen for coffee. (Decaf for Wilbur, but he was none the wiser.)

"The invention you're working on. What is it?" he smiled at his dad, revealing his missing bottom teeth. They had come out just a bit early when Wilbur had jumped off a couch and smashed his face off of a coffee table.

"I'm trying to think of a way people can commute faster." Cornelius slurped his coffee. "Ah, that's good Joe."

"Joe? Uncle Joe is still sleeping. You want me to wake him up?" Wilbur grinned mischievously, pulling an air horn from his pocket.

"No!" Cornelius grabbed the air horn frantically, accidentally hitting the button. His eyes bugged as 145 decibels raged through his ears and his spiky blond hair stuck up even more.

Wilbur laughed maniacally as his dad dropped the canister, eyes wide.

"That was funny, dad. Can you do it again?" he asked eagerly.

The now _very _awake inventor sat poring over his notes as his son pulled a black-bound notebook from a shelf. He opened it and began looked at all of his dad's plans from when he was eight.

Cornelius was pulled out of deep thought by his son tugged on his sleeve.

"Dad, what's this?" Wilbur pointed to a page that was barely still attached.

Cornelius peered at the worn notebook. "It's a flying skateboard."

His son's face light up immediately. "Did you ever really make one?"

"Nope. The engine always weighed the skateboard down."

"Well, we have flying cars, why can't you make a flying skateboard?" Wilbur asked, pouting.

The inventor rubbed his eyes. "Wilbur, I am kind of busy…"

"What about bubbles? Bubbles are light! Grandma knows how to make them super strong! You could put the skateboard on bubbles!" Wilbur pleaded with his father.

"Bubbles?" Cornelius smiled hugely. "Wilbur that's it! You're a genius!"

"Well, duh. I'm your son." Wilbur grinned cockily.

"Go wake up your mother. Here, bring her this." Cornelius handed Wilbur a coffee mug.

"What about my skateboard?" Wilbur whined.

"I'll make you one. You'll be the first kid in the world to fly on a skateboard."

Wilbur smiled. "Thanks, dad!" Cornelius already knew he could now make the skateboard, with components from the flying cars, but he had hit a breakthrough.

Suddenly he heard a clatter and an "Oops," from Wilbur. The inventor sighed, and knew it would have to wait this morning.

BACK

Goob adjusted to the orphanage life faster than Lewis thought he would. The only thing Lewis himself could not adjust to was Goob's nightmares. Every night he awoke to Goob's tormented screams. And every night he crawled into the lower bunk to comfort the four-year-old. By day Goob was a normal kid who loved juice boxes and baseball. But by night he was "the ghost of broken memories", which is what Lizzie the Fire Ant girl had said.

Goob was an addict. Juice boxes lay everywhere in the boys' shared room. Lewis traded Goob his juice boxes in exchange for help with his inventions, which Goob insisted he would do for free, but he took the juice anyway. Orange, apple, strawberry-kiwi, it made no difference. Another thing Goob loved was talking. It was nonstop. Lewis actually didn't mind, because it gave him sort of a background noise when he was working on an invention.

Three years went by, and finally, Lewis woke up one morning realizing Goob hadn't had a nightmare. Lewis had a good feeling about that.


	2. Video Games

Lewis was a big fan of technology, but he never really saw the point of video games. Goob, on the other hand, loved playing on the old console someone had donated to the orphanage. He played for hours on end, even though he had beaten all three games countless times. Lewis just never really thought about them. That was, until the day the orphanage was gifted another game and a second controller. Then there was the opportunity for two-player games. Goob began to pester Lewis at every moment to play with him. The inventor would use his projects as excuses not to come. He had better things to do than stare at a television and push buttons. Goob persisted, talking non-stop about how great the games were and how much Lewis would love them, one game, just one game, and then he'd leave him alone, oh pretty please, would he play just this once please? Finally Lewis couldn't take it anymore. He snatched the glasses off his face and rubbed his eyes.

"Okay! Fine! I will play ONE game!" he said grudgingly. Goob grinned and raced downstairs. Lewis sighed and followed.

Goob still talked at his breakneck pace as he explained the system to Lewis.

"So this is a controller and that's the joystick, and there's buttons A, B, C, and X. You'd wonder why they used X instead of D, but I could never figure it out. Then the buttons on the back, L and R, but you barely ever use those. You push start to pause and unpause the game and a menu will pop up and you can do stuff with that. If you don't like the joysticks you can use the arrow buttons but the joysticks work so much better…" Goob continued on about the controller as he popped the game into the console. Lewis felt a bit overwhelmed. He pushed the buttons that Goob instructed him to, as the game loaded.

"Okay, so this game is pretty simple. Use X to jump, double click it to super-jump, use C to crawl, use B to attack and if you hit A-B-double X you will mega-slam, which…" The inventor was confused, and that annoyed him. He'd done much more complicated things than play a video game.

"Are you ready?" Goob asked. Lewis nodded. He could do this. He was confident of it.

Ten minutes later, he found himself staring at the screen in shock and anger.

"HEY!" he yelled. "NO FAIR!" He turned to Goob. "How did you do that? What was that? You destroyed me!"

Goob looked at the inventor with an expression of half amusement and half surprise. "You wanna play again?" he asked.

Lewis turned at narrowed his eyes. "You're on, Yagoobian."

Hours later, Mildred went around, urging the kids to bed. She turned the corner into the den and saw something she thought she'd never see.

"Lewis? You're playing those games?" she asked incredulously.

"Hmm?" Lewis did not look away from the screen. "Hold on, Mildred, I have to beat him this time." His fingers darted across the buttons, and for a moment he looked victorious, but the buzzing little tune sounded, and GAME OVER flashed on the screen. Lewis howled in defeat. Goob just smiled at his opponent. "Good game, Lewis."

Mildred laughed at the two roommates. "Time for bed, guys. You can play again in the morning."

Lewis stood up, and his mind shifted to science mode. "There's got to be some physics involved. Velocity versus time on the 23 degree angle will result in…" he continued to mutter to himself as he went up to his room. Goob turned to Mildred in mild shock.

"What have I done?" he said, half-jokingly.

Over the next few weeks, Lewis went on one of his research-rampages. He hit the library, the university, the skate park, the science center and the target ranges. Anywhere that could help him figure out how to beat Goob in a game. Lewis filled three whole notebooks with notes, equations and diagrams about the science of video games. He stayed up late at night poring over books on physics, agility, and computers. Goob was grateful he was only reading, because he didn't think he could go through another week of bright lights and noises from the inventor's experiments.

Finally, Lewis came downstairs at lunchtime one day some weeks after, and announced: "I'm ready!"

Goob tried to reply but his mouth was stuck from his peanut butter sandwich. "Mhmm?"

Lewis placed his bundle of notebooks on the table and reached for a sandwich. The jelly squished out the side and covered his hands. "Yuck," he muttered, finding a paper towel before they became sticky. "Goob, after lunch, lets play."

The dark hared boy nodded. "You're on."

A group of orphanage kids gathered around the two boys as they prepared for battle. Goob's eyes glinted wildly as he turned on the console. Lewis took a deep breath as he picked up the controller. He scanned his notes in his mind.

"You ready for this?" Goob asked, grinning.

Lewis nodded. "Let's go."

After fifteen minutes of intense gameplay, Lewis was staring at the screen in defeat.

"But how? I know how to do this! I had the perfect formula! It makes no sense!"

Goob laughed and patted the inventor's shoulder.

"Lewis, no formula or equation is going to help you win. A book can't tell you how to beat your opponent. It takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. That's all."

Lewis smiled at his younger friend. "Then lets play again." he suggested, picking up the controller.

**--2037--**

Cornelius Robinson knocked on his son's door. Unfortunately, the rapping was lost in the yells and blasts from inside the room. Pushing the door open, he walked into Wilbur's room.

"Dad, I've told you a million times to knock." Wilbur said, not looking away from his video game.

" I did, though. You wouldn't be able to hear Tiny knock on your door with this noise." The inventor said, crossing his arms.

"Well, what is it? I'm kind of busy." Wilbur said, slightly annoyed.

"It's time to do your chores. You've been cooped up in here for hours." Cornelius moved to switch off the console.

"No! Come on, dad. One more game?" Wilbur pushed the pause button and looked at his father pleadingly.

Cornelius nearly burst out laughing at his son's expression. He was so into these games. But there were chores to be done…

"Okay, Wilbur, I have a deal for you. Play a game against me. I win, you go downstairs and do your chores. You win, I'll do your chores. Sound fair?"

Wilbur looked at his father in disbelief. "Seriously? You, play video games?" He laughed. "Okay, but have fun doing my chores."

Cornelius picked up a controller and looked at the screen. "Don't be so sure."

"What?!" Wilbur screamed at the screen as GAME OVER flashed repeatedly. "How? What? But…but…"

His father grinned as he turned off the console. "I believe you have some chores to do."

"Dad, how did you do it? You don't play video games! How did you beat me like that?" Wilbur asked, still in shock.

"Easy. I've had a lot of practice." Cornelius replied as he left the room.

_Thanks to superstoyboi124 for the inspiration, I was kind of short for plot. _


End file.
